On Tue, 2011-02-15 at 23:59 -0800, JDługosz wrote: > I noticed in the chapters I'm working on that often various things, such as > all the items on the various pages of the Options dialog, it refers to > "selecting" an option. In one place it was more noticeable in the user was > directed to "select" something in the dialog. > > In that case, the terminology is clearly wrong. Selecting is not the same > as operating on the widget. Selecting directs the attention to it, and > another operation may then be performed, such as toggling a check box. > > I suppose in some context where the option itself is referred to in an > imperative sense, saying the option is selected is OK and in fact I didn't > notice initially. But you'd have to be careful about the wording of the > sentence: are you being imperative or directing the user's action? It's > more consistent and easier to just use a word that always works. To that > end, I'm changing whatever descriptive phrase was used to "enabled" > (antonym: "disabled"). That works for any type of control (check box, radio > box, combo-box). > > I'm also trying to be more careful about wording things to reflect the > desired state, rather than the action. I.e. clicking on an option doesn't > necessarily enable it: it will toggle it, and you shouldn't click on it > unless it was off before. So don't (just) direct the user to click on > something to achieve an effect. Rather, the effect occurs when the option > is enabled. And of course this is the very case in which merely selecting > it doesn't do anything other than make the gui draw a selection rectangle > around that item.
From a programmer's POV, that's what "select" does. However, from an ordinary USER's POV, "select" turns it on and "deselect" turns it off. --Jean -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to [email protected] List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/documentation/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
